Silent Voices (Vera Stanhope 4) (26 page)

‘Danny Shaw?’

‘Same theory as with Morgan? He was there, saw what happened and tried to blackmail them.’ She looked up suddenly. ‘We still don’t know if he and Hannah knew each other at school. But I think he’d certainly recognize her. Not that many young folk living in the valley.’

‘Why would Hannah dump the bag next to Connie’s cottage?’

Vera gave a sudden loud laugh. ‘God knows. To throw us off the scent? I really don’t believe any of it. No way did Hannah kill her mother. You just have to be with her to see she’s grieving. We’re in
Jackanory
territory here, bonny lad. The land of make-believe.’

‘The rest of the Eliots then?’

Vera didn’t answer. She went to the window and looked down the valley, then walked unsteadily upstairs to the bathroom. Joe heard the toilet flush, the gurgle of water in old pipes. He stood up too. There was a half moon and a clear sky. A dizzying view of points of light in the village below. It was like looking out of a plane at night. He could feel the chill through the glass. Vera came back.

‘The Eliots,’ she said as if she hadn’t left the room. ‘Not lords of the manor. No real land and no old money. Not any more. Local, you can tell that by the name. One of the Border Reiver clans, the Eliots. But seems to me Christopher Eliot’s family would have been tradespeople or farmers, not aristocracy. Veronica’s a bit different, though. She likes to play the role of lady. Status is important to her. And once her granddad did have a grand house, servants and a big estate. It’s still rotting down by the river, and that’s odd too. Worth following up. Does she care enough about her good name to kill? I’m not sure, but people have committed murder for less.’

She returned to her seat by the fire and Ashworth followed.

‘Our Veronica’s hiding something,’ Vera said. ‘But that doesn’t make her a killer. She could have nicked a few quid from WI funds and be shitting herself that we’ll find out. I’d love to know why she’s become so pally with Connie Masters all of a sudden. I really don’t get what’s going on there. Can’t see that there’d be any connection with Danny Shaw, though, unless she’d chosen him for her toy boy.’

‘Shaw could have been the man who called at Connie’s cottage the afternoon of the murder.’

‘So he could.’ Mocking him gently, because of course she’d already thought of that.

‘Is that the plan for the morning? Head off for Barnard Bridge. Show Connie Danny Shaw’s photo, and chat to Veronica.’

‘Aye.’ Vera yawned. ‘That’ll do for a start. And if we can get a recent photo of Morgan with his hair shaved off, get Connie to look at that too.’ She looked over at him. ‘Are you planning on staying all night? I don’t know about you, but I need my beauty sleep. And your missus will have forgotten what you look like. Off you go.’

Joe was astonished. Usually Vera was desperate to keep him there until the early hours. Many times she’d offered him the bed in her spare room:
Don’t be a spoilsport, Joey lad. Have a few drinks and keep an old lady company.
‘We haven’t talked about Elias Jones,’ he said.

‘Nor we haven’t.’ She grinned at him. ‘Now what’s that saying?’ She appeared to drag the phrase from her memory. ‘The elephant in the room. That’s what Elias Jones is in this case. We all know he’s there, but we’ve stopped talking about him.’

Joe suspected she was pretending to be drunker than she really was. She could drink most of the men he knew under the table. Anyway, he thought, best to go now before she changed her mind. He got to his feet and made his way to the door, half expecting her to call him back. But she stayed where she was, staring into the fire.

Outside it was so cold that for a moment it took his breath away. The metallic smell of ice in the air, maybe the last frost of the season. He stopped for a moment and looked back through the window at Vera, slumped in her chair, her eyes closed. Even from here and seeing her half asleep, he could feel the force of her personality.

If anyone’s the elephant in the room
, he thought,
it’s Vera Stanhope.

It was still cold when they met at Barnard Bridge. Dew on the grass and a low mist over the river. In Mallow Cottage the curtains were drawn and there was no sign of life, so they went to the Eliots’ first. Vera didn’t mind disturbing Veronica, but Connie might have had a bad night with the bairn and Vera thought she could do with a lie-in.

When Vera arrived, Ashworth was already in the village. He was standing outside his car, wearing a duffel coat so that he looked like a student from the days when Vera had been a girl, and was looking down at the bank of the burn where Jenny Lister’s bag had been found. ‘You’d be able to throw it from here,’ he said. ‘No bother.’

‘You might. I wouldn’t get it more than a couple of yards. Never got picked for the rounders team at school.’ She turned and led him up the gravel drive to the white house.

Inside the Eliots were having breakfast and, to her surprise, Hannah was there too. They sat round the table in the smart kitchen where Vera had been taken on her first visit: Veronica, a smartly dressed grey-haired man, whom Vera took to be Christopher the husband, Simon and Hannah. Hannah was still wearing a dressing gown, her hair was matted and she looked barely conscious. Simon had come to the door. No one else made any move. No expression of shock or hostility. It was as if they’d been captured in a photograph. There was the smell of good coffee and warm croissants. A jug of garden flowers stood on the table. The scene could have been a photograph in a smart Sunday supplement.

Vera was thrown by the presence of the young people. She hadn’t been expecting it. But she wasn’t going to let on. She pulled up a chair next to Christopher, leaving Ashworth standing behind her.

Simon seemed amused by the disruption to the family routine and by his parents’ dumbstruck stillness. ‘Coffee, Inspector? Or would you prefer tea? Hannah decided she was OK to stay here last night, so we thought we’d give it a go.’ He reached over and touched the girl’s hand.

Vera thought Hannah didn’t look up to making any decisions of her own. ‘Tea, please, pet. Strong as you like. My sergeant here likes coffee.’ She turned to Simon’s father. ‘We’ve not been introduced. My name’s Vera Stanhope. Inspector with Northumbria Police serious crime squad.’ When the man made no answer she added: ‘I know you’ve been away, but you have heard there’s been a murder in the valley?’

‘Of course.’ He was shocked at last to speech. ‘Hannah’s mother. A terrible tragedy.’ The voice was lovely, deep and resonant. A singer’s voice.

‘Did you know her well?’

‘Not well. We’d met a few times of course, through the children.’ He stood up, brushed a crumb from the grey suit trousers and took his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘I must go, I’m afraid. A meeting at nine.’ His body was younger than his face. Vera wondered if he went to the gym. She hadn’t asked if he was a member of the Willows, but surely the name would have been flagged up when the list had been requested. Assume nothing, she told herself, and made a mental note to check. It seemed that everyone involved in the case had a link to the Willows. The place was like the centre of a spider’s web.

‘Does the name Danny Shaw mean anything to you?’

He stopped with his hand on the table. She could smell his aftershave. His fingernails were obsessively clean. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t think so.’

He left the room then, without waiting to find out why she was asking. She found his lack of curiosity very odd and stared after him through the open kitchen door. She’d expected him to go upstairs to clean his teeth, perhaps to collect papers for work. There were still questions she had to ask him. But instead he stooped to pick up his briefcase, which was standing in the hall, and left the house. It seemed to her that he was running away. She was tempted to call him back, but after all they knew where he’d be and the gesture would have seemed ridiculous. Much better to go to his office and talk to him alone. She’d already checked that he was out of the country the day Jenny Lister died. They heard the sound of his car, the tyres crunching on the gravel.

With his departure, Veronica came to life. ‘What’s so urgent, Inspector, that you’re disturbing us at this hour in the morning?’

‘Murder,’ Vera said, enjoying the moment of melodrama. ‘That’s what’s so important.’

‘We’ve told you all we know about poor Jenny.’ The
poor
added at the last minute because of Hannah’s presence, though it seemed to Vera that Hannah was hardly aware they were there at all.

‘There’s been another death.’ At last Vera had the response she wanted. Even Hannah looked up, her eyes blurred. Ashworth’s mobile rang, spoiling the moment. Vera glared at him as he left the room to take the call.

‘Who else has been killed?’ Veronica had her palms on the table and had half risen in her seat.

‘A student called Danny Shaw.’

Silence. Again no sign that the name meant anything to them.

Vera leaned across the table towards Hannah. ‘You were at school with him, pet.’ Her voice so low that the others had to strain to make out the words. ‘Can you tell us anything about him?’

Hannah pushed her hair away from her face, made an effort to concentrate. ‘He was older than me.’

‘That’s right.’

‘In the sixth form when I was doing GCSEs. We met up on the school bus sometimes.’ She gave a sudden bright smile. ‘He asked me out.’

‘Did you go?’

‘A couple of times.’

Vera wished Ashworth were still in the room. She needed her eyes to be everywhere. Just now she looked at Simon Eliot. Had he known about this previous relationship? Was this the sort of thing young people in love discussed while they walked hand in hand down country lanes in the spring? Had he been jealous, or had the details of previous lovers added spice to their own lovemaking? Because turning her attention back to Hannah, seeing the smile again on her face, Vera thought she and Danny had probably been lovers. Now, it was impossible to tell what Simon thought about that. His arm was around Hannah and his only concern seemed to be for her.

Vera directed the next question to the boy. ‘Did you know Danny? You went to different schools, but you were about the same age.’

‘Yeah, I knew him. I was a bit older, but we had friends in common, went to the same parties. We weren’t close, though.’

‘Have you seen him this holiday?’

Simon hesitated. Because he was trying to remember, or because he had something to hide?

‘Once perhaps. A couple of weeks ago in a pub in Hexham.’ He turned to Hannah. ‘Do you remember, sweetie? You were there.’

‘Yes,’ she said immediately. ‘Yes, of course.’ But Vera thought she would have said anything to please him.

‘Why did you only go out with Danny a couple of times?’ Vera asked her. Hannah was so frail that she wondered if she would manage to answer even something as simple as this.

‘Nice body, shame about the personality,’ Hannah said. It wasn’t the first time she’d used the phrase. Perhaps that was how she’d described Danny to Simon. ‘I fancied him like crazy, then I realized he was an arrogant little shit.’

‘So you dumped him?’

‘Yes.’ Again there was the brief flash of a grin. ‘I think it was a new experience for him.’

‘Did he ever meet your mother?’

Vera asked the question as gently as she could, but still she felt the girl’s sudden pain at the memory.

‘Once. At least once. Mum asked him to Sunday lunch.’

‘How did it go?’

‘It was rather hideous actually.’ Hannah pulled a face. ‘You know how it is when you suddenly see a person through someone else’s eyes? I’d been taken in by Danny. He’d impressed me with his talk, his dreams and his plans for the future. He tried the same stuff with Mum, only he couldn’t impress her. She was perfectly pleasant and tactful, but it was obvious to me that she couldn’t stand him.’

‘That’s why you dumped him?’

‘I think so. Not because Mum didn’t like him. But because she made me realize that I didn’t like him much either.’

‘How did he take it?’ Vera realized that Ashworth had slipped into the room again and she felt more confident for his being there.

‘No one likes rejection, do they?’

‘Did he give you any hassle?’ This was Joe’s question.

‘Only enough to give my ego a nice boost. A couple of love letters. Some soppy emails. Just a case of wanting what he couldn’t have, I think.’

‘Has he been in touch recently?’

‘Not for ages. I saw him about, of course. Someone told me he had a girlfriend in Bristol.’

Her voice had become stronger as the conversation progressed. For a couple of minutes she’d forgotten about her mother, felt sympathy instead for this stranger in Bristol who had lost her boyfriend.

‘Did you ever meet Danny Shaw, Mrs Eliot?’ That was Joe Ashworth being suitably deferential.

‘No, how would I?’ Brisk to the point of rudeness.

‘He never came to this house, for example?’ Joe widened the question to include Simon.

‘Of course not!’ Veronica answered for them both.

‘Because someone answering his description asked for directions to your house on the afternoon of Jenny Lister’s death.’